The VIVID – Vibrant Visions In Design Awards is a furniture design competition held in Australia, as part of the Furnitex exhibition event, running in tandem with the State of Design Festival in Melbourne. It features the 50 most inspiring and talented designers in Australia for the year with their unique product designs. There are four different categories to participate in: Commercial, Concept, Student and Green.

This year UNSW Industrial Design student Joseph Louis Tan has been named as one of the finalists in the student category with his design MEW Modular Coffee Table. When asked about his reasons for entering the competition Joseph said “ VIVID presented to designers and design students like me an opportunity to showcase and share our designs in Australia’s largest furniture and furnishing trade fair to over 17,000 trade visitors. I hope that by entering VIVID, not only will I be gauging myself against Australia’s talented designers, but also be given a chance to meet and network with them, exhibitors and trade visitors. I was always curious about the underlying process of participating in a huge exhibition like Furnitex and hope to use it as a platform to learn and experience valuable lessons that cannot be taught in university lectures and tutorials. I am also interested in the potential of possibly commercializing my design and VIVID will be an ideal stepping stone in that direction.”

Joseph’s design of the MEW Modular Coffee Table was inspired by traditional Japanese wood joinery and modern cutting technology capabilities. The design is a simple, versatile and interactive modular coffee table that can be rearranged to suit different individuals needs with its three smaller separate tables. Made from water-jet cut locally sourced Hoop Pine plywood, it uses various types of unique slotted connections that allow it to be easily assembled without fixtures or fittings and comes flat-packed for easier transport and storage.

Modern day living means that time constraints and changing lifestyles are altering consumers needs for household products. Innovative designs are required to cater to these changing needs. This year the Electrolux Design Lab has asked industrial design students and recent graduates worldwide to create home appliances that consider intelligent mobility; their designs need to show a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity.

There were 1300 entrants and from that 25 semi-finalists have been chosen from all over the world. Three of the semi finalists are from Australia and of those three, two are Industrial Design students from UNSW!

We would like to congratulate Alfred Ching and Saba Zara on their creative and innovative designs. Alfred Ching’s design ‘Honeycomb Modular Induction Tiles’ (pictured above) looks at creating different sized and shaped movable heating surfaces which can be stacked for easy storage. Saba Zara’s design ‘Mywash’ is a communal washing machine with individual barrels which can be controlled via a smart phone.

The 25 semi-finalists will be whittled down to a final eight. The finalists will present their designs to a jury who will consider the entries based on intuitive design, innovation and consumer insight. The winning designer will receive €5,000 ($6,786AUD) and a 6 month paid internship at an Electrolux global design centre.

As part of their final year studio, students from the graduating year of UNSW Master of Architecture 2010 explored different aspects of architectural investigation. Simon Chan was part of a group that worked on visualising infrastructure as architecture through the re-conception of a train station. He reflects below on his project titled “The University of Sydney Station – a proposal to resolve the congestion problem at the existing Redfern Train station”.

Written by Simon Chan:

The location of the existing Redfern Station is a traffic knot, caused by the conflagration of pedestrian, vehicle, commuters and cyclists traffic, this troublesome situation is compelling for a major change, with the consideration of both Sydney University expansion into North Eveleigh in 2020 and the future development of Australian Technology Park. A new station is proposed to resolve these flows.

The new station is inserted at the heart of the future university site and ATP,aligning with Codrington Street which belongs to the university, with the other end pointing directly to the Channel 7 office, an office which house up to 2000 staff members. As the result McDonalds Town Station is demolished allowing a more even coverage of station that currently does not exist.

The project consists of two bridge buildings linked by an open pedestrian bridge; each bridge contains its own program. The first bridge contains the train station and an accessible roof, with gallery space and a nightclub, access via a ramp that is open before and after the train operates. The choice of program is a protest against the current timetable system of train operation, and the mixing of activities that have previously been perceived as incompatible. The second bridge is the University Learning hub, containing small collections of books and digital media, reading rooms, classrooms and lecture theatre, allowing both individual and collective uses.

The new University of Sydney Station becomes a place to stop, to contemplate, to listen and see, to rest and refresh, to talk and exchange, with the presence of movements and unpredictable events.

We are giving all BE students the chance to win an Apple IPad simply by taking part in an online CATEI survey! All you have to do is log into CATEI via your myUNSW portal and tell us your opinion about things. All those who complete the survey will go into a draw to win an Apple IPad.

We want to hear what you think! If positive, please take the time to say so, affirm what is happening and provide this feedback to the lecturers. If you would like to see change let us know so things can change.

It is understandable that this is a hectic time of the year and your time to provide this very important feedback is really appreciated. It will only take about 15 – 20 minutes!

Did you know because you complete CATEI;

Lecturers have changed course content and teaching as a result of your feedback.

If you complete the survey you can view lecturer feedback on comments and course data after the results are finalised.

If you complete the survey you are then given access to see the completed results for Form A evaluation and so find out what your peers thought.

By completing the survey you boost the overall response rate for FBE compared to other Faculties at UNSW which is very important. You also boost your own program’s response rate compared to other programs within FBE too! Yes, they are all measured which indicates the importance of this survey.

UNSW BE students have been given the opportunity to design and construct a temporary pavilion on the forecourt of Customs House in a competition that explores recycled materials and their transformation into exciting new event spaces.

The opening of this installation is being held this Wednesday, October 20.

Sam Adeloju, UNSW BE Industrial Design student, was just announced as the winner of the $16,000 James Dyson Award for the design of a device that could save swimmers from drowning. Sam’s design, named Longreach, with the unofficial name “Buoyancy Bazooka”, shoots an emergency flotation device 150m out to sea. Made from hydrophobic foam, the buoy can expand up to 40 times its size on contact with water so the swimmer can stay afloat without the risk the buoy will spring a leak. The device is also equipped with flares for night time.

Sam is the first Australian to win the award in five years, and is in talks with Surf Life Saving Australia about conducting field trials. Winning this prize will give the Longreach international exposure.

Sam will recieve $16 000 in prize money, and a trip to the Dyson laboratories in Britain. UNSW will also receive $16,000 for Sam’s fantastic achievement.

We have made great use of our induction into the design labs as we continue to construct the timber frame. Meanwhile a team in the UNSW Tramsheds have been busy constructing the ‘modules’ which will be transported separately to site for the final installation.

At this point it looks as though it will be installed in the customs House Forecourt for a duration of 1-3 weeks (weather permitting!) during October – After which it will hopefully take centre stage in The Red Centre!

Today we had the pleasure of showing our progress to Richard Johnson and Ken Mahr who provided some helpful feedback! Hopefully you will able to judge for yourselves very soon!!